Pirate Bay Torrent drones could soar over piracy rules

High-profile torrent site The Pirate Bay has threatened to take its content to the skies, with the perhaps tongue-in-cheek suggestion of GPS-controlled wireless drones that could automatically host nodes. The site’s odd suggestion is using low-power, compact computers like Raspberry Pi, guided by GPS and connected using cheap wireless systems, floated “some kilometers” so that takedowns will need to involve physical destruction by planes.

“With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air. This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war” The Pirate Bay

The drones are dubbed Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) and The Pirate Bay suggests a cheap transmitter can provide up to 100Mbps, per node, over a 50km distance. That, the site argues, is “more than enough” for the proxy system it has in mind.

To be frank, it reads more like science fiction than something you’d expect from a torrent site, but that’s not to say it wouldn’t actually work. Issues like power and remote control would need to be addressed – perhaps using solar or wind energy – and then there’s the potential for lawsuits should a drone accidentally drift into flight lanes.

The Pirate Bay has come under increasing legal attention over the past few years, with a court case finding the site’s founders guilty of enabling piracy of copyrighted content. In response, the site has shifted from hosting torrent files to instead offering so-called magnetic links to externally hosted files, a move which allows for a 90MB download of the entire site’s catalog.